Simon Brown L6LJ Theatre Studies - Volpone
Mosca’s soliloquy - 3.1 - Humour
Mosca’s soliloquy in the first scene of Act 3 is a potential goldmine for much physical humour. The effect that Mosca, ‘the fly’ and Volpone’s servant and conniver during the play, has on the audience can be brought about through various acting techniques acted upon the words themselves in the speech or by the use of amended/added stage directions and aesthetic effects such as lighting. The latter, however, would not have been an obvious technique at the time of which Jonson wrote the play, purely on a basis of lack of technology but can still be accepted as an effective technique for contemporary productions of the play.